Accessing the gulch

To enter the Forbidden Wasteland planeshift to Karnath and go n, 4w. The first room of the Wasteland has 3 shrouded warders. Along the path you can loot the Curved Girtablilu Bow.

Go w,n,w,n,w,s,w to reach the wall of gristle and bone. Get the skeletal hand from the wall.

Go s,e,s,e,n. To your east is a 2x2 temple that contains a stabber and a blackjacker.

Go e,s,e to reach the altar. Pull switch to reveal a down exit to Zedek the desecrator.

Give Zedek the hand and he'll blow up the wall for you, clearing the way to Patriarchs' Gulch. He also creates a portal for you, so you don't have to walk back to the wall. The room he portals to is Lloydable, so summon the anchor here to farm multiple Gulch runs.

Zedek also accepts the last remaining drop of goo. This item can be obtained by killing all the "goo" related mobs in the Forbidden Wasteland (they don't repop). The drop is tougher to get than the hand, but it's a good option if you want to move the Planar Anchor out of Karnath and still be able to easily return to the gulch later on.

Opening Gulch will take about 24-48 tics, depending on your group.

Discovering the royal tomb

Suggested group size: ~20, with at least 1 bzk and 1 prs. Having 2+ bzk and 2 prs is highly recommended. A good balance between melee and caster is also necessary to clear the symbol portion of this run. The run is doable with less, but will probably take significantly longer.

Read the entire section below before attempting it to get an idea of what you will need to do; if you have to reference this after each ticket, I can guarantee your run will take much longer.

Tickets neeed to access the tomb

• Olive Branch
• Dusty Work Gloves
• Well-Oiled Leather Sheath
• Evenly Balanced Scale

Golden Scarab Medallion

From the Lloydable room go d,w,s and kill the restless spirit to get the golden scarab medallion. This is a key that unlocks the unfinished tomb.

Olive Branch

Go u,w and kill the captain of the honor guard. He spawns an olive branch on death. This is one of four tickets you need to get the key to the royal burial chamber.

- Note that this room is one of the most painful rooms on the run. The mobs can toss/bash and hit very very hard. I suggest letting your bzk get their hp knocked down quite a bit in this room to prepare for the symbols.

Dusty Work Gloves

Go n,e,{e} to enter the unfinished tomb. Get the broken pickaxe from the pile of stoneworking tools. Next go e,s. Give the broken pickaxe to the undead contractor before he dies. He will repair it into the well-maintained pickaxe, which is the key you need to open the ransacked tomb. On death the contractor will spawn the dusty work gloves, ticket #2 of 4.

- The dusty work gloves spawn on the ground, but the well-maintained pickaxe will be on the contractor's corpse and looted (or not looted) by the person who lands the killing blow.

Well-Oiled Leather Sheath

From the contractor's room Go n,w,w,u. This room has two portals in it: the symbol of Shizaga and the symbol of Werredan. (It is dwuu from the Lloydable room.) Only casters can enter Shizaga's portal, and only melee-types can enter Werredan's portal. At the end of the caster's leg there's a lever which opens up the final room of the brute's path. Here you will find the master blacksmith. He can also repair your pickaxe if you forgot to get the contractor to do it. Kill him and get the handle of a broken knife.

- When I do this part of the run, I ideally want the bzk to be within 2-3 scars of FF upon entering the symbol. This will give you a huge source of melee damage, and allow you to clear the melee only section much more quickly.

- Each section consists of 3 rooms; access to the next room is through the portal that spawns after the last mob dies. The last room in the melee section has a mob that can call for additional mobs to join the fray, which means you will want to kill him quickly. This can be done by having your bzk in Final Fury.

- As an added incentive to bring 2+ bzk with FF, the blacksmith appears to be spec'd like a Tortuga in Tortuga Cay. He is immune to melee, with the exception of blunt weapons. This is why having 2 bzks is nice, as the mob has a fairly large amount of hp, and without a high source of damage from blunt (FF), the room will take a while.

- I have never personally led the caster section, but I would suggest sending in your largest caster (probably a mage or mindbender) through the portal first to soak up the damage. I like having two priests for this section just in case a repop gets your group messed up, since caster rescue is laggy.

- Caster section all lvl 130 mobs worth 60-80 xp, Room 1 (a stupid giant), Room 2 (a robed priest x 2), Room 3 (enchanted drake, tail stun), Room 4 (a cocky magus x 3).

From the symbol room go s, enter beam, n. Inpuvultu, lord of the dead will tell you that he's looking for objects which bear the stain of evil. The knife handle is one such object. Give it to him and he'll awaken the Prince of Knives within the ransacked tomb. To get there from Inpuvultu: enter patch,w,{s} (pickaxe key),s. The prince wanders this small 3 room crypt. Killing him will yield the well-oiled leathed sheath, ticket #3. While in the ransacked tomb, get the stray chess piece from the corpse of a Karnathian temple guard in the room furthest south.

- Crypt is 5 rooms long, not 3.

- The prince carries two knives which are weight 3, 20/25 piercing weapons (Long, Glinting Knife). Giving Inpuvultu the knife handle will also spawn another mob that has the Cool Onyx Bracelet, which is t1 wrist mana. There is also another mob in this section that may or may not be spawned by turning in the knife handle; it is a foraging graverobber that carries the Looter's Sack, a 2 lb container that can carry 750 lbs.

- The fire before the corpse contains a Bright Silver Bracer, which is type treasure and can be sold for about 350k.

Evenly Balanced Scale

Bring the stray chess piece to Inpuvultu. To get back to Inpuvultu, ne from tunnel to get back to condor nest/beam, enter beam & go north. He will summon the disgraced patriarch. The Disgraced Patriach is north from the room with the nest/beam. Upon his death you will receive the evenly balanced scale, the final ticket. The disgraced patriarch also carries the Clenched Fist, a 7/7 gauntlet (t1 hit).

Turn in all four tickets to Inpuvultu. He will open an ominous passageway. Through this portal you will find a full-safe infirmary room that contains the key to the royal burial chamber. When you're ready, go down. The door to the royal tomb will be to your north.

Tips

A short synopsis on a few goals you want to do to make your gulch run not take over 2 spellups:

1. Keep the amount of times you need to regen low. Ideally, you will regen only twice, once after you clear the symbols, and once in the room with the key to the royal chamber. The Lloydable room is also shrine-able, so regenning there after clearing the symbols is the best option.
2. Let your bzk reach Final Fury (FF) hp right before you enter the symbol portion so that the melee section is cleared more quickly. To do this, try not to let your priests heal your bzk too much during the run.
3. When you turn in the broken knife and the stray chess piece, ask your group to remain in the room with the beam of sunlight. Only the leader needs to give the ticket to Inpuvultu, and his rooms are noregen anyways. Only after you collect the scale ticket from the disgraced patriach should you ask your entire group to enter the beam of sunlight.
4. At the end of this section, you should have the Clenched Fist, Cool Onyx Bracelet, Bright Silver Bracer, 20/25 knives, and maybe the scythe that is a t1 basher. The scythe comes from a reaper that is part of the main run.

Facing the Patriarchs

Requirements for gear part

The keys you need are: the golden scarab medallion and the key to the burial chamber. The suggested group size is 20, with two healers. Even with a fair amount of fp, it will be a struggle to clear the area and regen before each repop. You can inno/calm from the patriarchs if needed, they're sentinel.

Loot

• Robe Of Magnificence (8/8, t1 hit about body), on Spirit Of Fattah-Ra
• Jeweled Crown Of The Patriarchy (t2 ac head, -95 ac, +150 hp, -50 saves), pops on ground after mobs die
• Open Palm (-30 ac, t1 ac on hands, zgaunts without hr/dr)
• The Subjugator (30/30, 80-95-110 whip, cannot be runed)

Other loot includes Reptilian Battle Armor (-75 ac, t5 ac about body), Lacquered Bow, "Ambush" (42 hr, t2 bow)

Gear Area

The royal tomb is located d,w,u,{e},e,n,{n} from the Lloydable room. If you just got the key, you're already here. The Patriarchs themselves are behind another closed door 2n. The fight consists of 3 big mobs that each spawn a bigger mob upon death. If you're looking to camp, the treasury s,e from the gear room is probably your best bet.

• The royal tomb has 4 rooms. In the 3 rooms before the gear room, 5 mobs will spawn each repop. I suggest clearing these 5 mobs each time the gear room repops, to make sure that your sleep is uninterrupted for as long as possible during regen.
• One of the 5 mobs which repop in the royal tomb is a Trial By Fire. It can target cast for ERAD and area spell. Try to kill it first.
• A traditional tank chain does not work so well in the gear room, as the mobs toss, which causes them to target your groupies seemingly randomly. You will need to ask your tanks to watch each other and just spread damage as best as possible. This is also a great reason to have two priests, since it is very likely your casters will take a round or two during the gear room, and you can't afford the extra time to target heal them, as the mobs do hit relatively hard (3x anni-erad).
• Because of the way the gear room works, lower mana casters such as mages won't be able to surge 5 meteor swarm, as they will run out of mana as the bigger mobs spawn. I suggest letting your area casters surge 3 throughout the room (HiE wizards and other wizards with a lot of mana may be able to get away with higher surges), while letting your sors surge 4-5. Sors with 35k+ mana can probably afford surge 5 throughout.
• If you intend to camp, try not to run your casters completely empty. The 5 mobs found before the gear room will probably repop before you can regen to full, so you want to budget your mana such that you don't miss a pop if possible. If you are low on mana after clearing the 5 mobs before the gear room, I suggest just skipping the current pop and regenning.